All That You Can't Leave Behind
by weshallflyaway2
Summary: When Yudi next sees Shalini, it is in a military field hospital, four years after his graduation.


When Yudi next sees Shalini, it is in a military field hospital, four years after his graduation.

She is tying off the leg of a soldier, preparing to amputate as she calls out commands to the doctors and nurses around her, and for a moment Yudi is so struck by the concept of her being right there that he forgets what he's doing.

A call from the soldier holding the other end of stretcher reminds him and Yudi hurries further inside, helping to shift the injured soldier to an available bed and seeing that she's in the capable hands of the medical staff before heading back outside.

The skirmish may have been won but only at enormous cost and there are more injured personnel that need to be seen to before he can relax, or allow himself to become caught up in memories of the past.

/

"Have you been seen to yet, Captain?"

Yudi recognises her voice before he sees her and knows that Shalini hasn't realised it's him yet from where she stands behind him.

"I was waiting for you to be free, ma'am." He tells her, turning around as he says it to see her reaction.

He's not disappointed, Shalini puts a hand over her mouth in surprise before she scrubs at her eyes, smiling all the while. "Yudi. You're a sight for sore eyes."

"As are you, ma'am." He tells her solemnly. "I saw you working earlier, I know many members of my unit are only still here because of you."

"That's my duty." Shalini replies, equally as seriously. "Now let's see to your head."

"It stopped bleeding hours ago, I don't think it needs any serious attention." Yudi tells her dismissively. "When was the last time you ate or drank something?"

"I..." Shalini gives him a tired smile. "I don't remember."

"Let's go to the mess then. You need to keep your energy up if you're going to look after us."

"It's a deal, Captain." Shalini tells him. "But after I've checked your head."

/

They sit at a table in the mess, Yudi's head now bandaged, Shalini's hands washed clean of blood. He thinks how strange it is to be here with her once again after everything they went through together.

Yudi would be lying if he was to say he hadn't thought of her over the years. Not more often than reasonable, but sometimes before missions or in the dark of the night when he can't sleep. There is something unfinished between them that was never defined, and Yudi has wondered over the years just how things might have been different if he'd had the courage to speak before he left KMA.

He wasn't ready then though. There was still so much he hadn't learned about being comfortable in his own skin.

"How is it that you're here, ma'am? I didn't know that you'd left KMA."

Shalini shakes her head. "There's no need to call me ma'am now, Yudi. You're no longer a cadet and we're the same rank."

He nods, he'll call her by her name if that's what she wishes. It's how he's thought of her for many years now.

Shalini sighs. "KMA was never the same after your batch left. After everything that happened, there were too many memories there, too many regrets. I would walk down those hallways, past the door that used to be the Captain's, and think about what I could have said or done differently to change things."

Yudi doesn't need to ask who she's talking about. For all of them, no matter what rank they might become, there will still be only one person they ever think of as their Captain.

"It seemed stupid, after all of that, to live a life of regrets. So I finalised my divorce and requested a new posting, wanting to leave those memories behind."

"You couldn't though, could you."

The rest remains unsaid, that Yudi hasn't either, that none of them ever could.

/

Shalini looks back at Yudi where he sits in front of her, the hot cup of coffee held between his hands as steam rises from it. He's confident now, where once he was unsure. He's grown into himself just as she always knew he would.

She gives him a sad smile, he already knows the answer when he's lived it himself.

"And Naina... has she..." Shalini doesn't even know how to phrase it, the grief all too fresh once again when she thinks of Captain Rajveer's loss. "Has she recovered?"

Yudi smiles sadly. "Oh Naina is a brilliant soldier, genuinely the best of us. She's brave and she's strong and she has never once compromised on her ideals. Has she recovered though? No." He sighs, "Naina was always the truest of us. Once she set her heart on something, it could never be changed."

Shalini thinks of the girl she'd known, of how seldom she'd seen her truly happy in that time, of her quiet suffering, of her breakdown after the Captain's death, and finally of the knowledge that Naina will probably never fall in love again.

It isn't fair.

Shalini hasn't led an easy life herself, but she's had her chances and made her choices and she knows that if she wants to, if she really tries, that she can find happiness again. She's happy in her work and happy in her achievements and she's reached the stage where she knows she doesn't need love to make her complete.

Even if it would be nice.

Naina though, Naina was meted out more than her fair share of suffering in those years and Shalini worries that she will never move past it. Seeing Yudi in front of her, Shalini knows that he believes the same.

"And you, Yudi? How have you been these last years?"

"I've been good ma'am... Shalini. It was like you and Captain Rajveer always said, I just needed to give myself time. I know who I am now, I'm happy with who I am. I don't need muscles like Huda's to know that I'm brave."

Shalini is proud of him then, so very proud, knowing what she does about what he has overcome to reach this point.

"And did you find there were more girls interested in you once you had your uniform?"

Yudi laughs then. "That's the funny thing, you were right about that too. It's just that by the time they were interested in me I no longer cared."

/

It's not that he hasn't dated. He'd enjoyed the attention at first, at knowing that for the first time in his life there were girls chasing him instead, that he was no longer the only one without any hope of finding a date.

Yudi hasn't been waiting all these years, he hasn't rejected anyone on the basis of a long ago connection that was never quite fulfilled.

He also hasn't ever found anyone that came even close to understanding him the way that Shalini did.

He's grown tired of dates that are only ever small talk, of having to live up to someone else's concept of what he should be when things do go further. Yudi's not like Huda, content to have a surplus of admirers to choose from and to give hints of what has passed between them. What Yudi has always wanted is deeper than that, it's understanding and support and love.

He almost had it once, but he wasn't ready. He wasn't yet the man he needed to be, either for her or himself.

Four years later and Yudi wonders if this is some type of a sign from fate. Whatever might have stopped him then, those concerns are no longer there, there's nothing to hold him back now.

Yudi has learned the hard way what is to live with regrets, he sees it every time he sees Naina, that haunted look in her eyes even as she smiles past it.

The day he said goodbye to Shalini at KMA he couldn't tell her what he really wanted to. Yudi's glad in a way that he didn't, it wasn't the right time then, there was still too much standing in their way, his insecurities chief amongst them.

There's nothing to stop him now though, not when he's finally sure of what he wants.

He wants to try, he wants to see if they really can fit together as well as he believes they can.

"Will you be posted to the base for awhile?" He asks her. "It would be good to have you here."

"I've just arrived and I should be here for a year at least. What about you, Yudi?"

"I should be here for the same amount of time, but changes in postings are always uncertain. We go where we're needed."

Shalini nods and drains her cup of coffee, standing as if to return it when Yudi calls out to stop her, wanting to before he loses his courage. "Go for dinner with me!"

Shalini turns back towards him. "What?"

"Exactly what I said, ma'... Shalini. Let me take you out for dinner. Not today of course, another day when there's less patients."

Shalini sits back down again, her expression a strange mixture of caution and hope.

"What are you really saying, Yudi?"

"I'm saying I don't want to live with regret that I didn't try. I've... I've thought about you. I've wanted to see you again. I would be a fool if I didn't make an effort to see where this could go now."

Shalini stares at him. "You don't know what you're saying, Yudi. This is a bad idea."

"Why? Can you tell me you haven't wondered about what there was between us? We had a connection, we still do."

"I'm... I'm a lot older than you."

"You're not that much older. There's no more difference than there was between the Captain and Naina. More importantly, it doesn't matter to me."

"You know about my history, Yudi." Shalini tells him matter of factly. "I'm divorced and you know what caused it. I don't want to be put in that position again where that tears me apart from someone I care for."

Yudi's not about to give up and he's feeling particularly brave today on a day he's cheated death. He reaches out to take her hand, grasping it tightly. "I'm not asking you for marriage, Shalini. Just a date, and if that one goes well then another one after that and we see where it takes us."

"And if it doesn't go well?" Shalini asks him and Yudi can clearly see the fear in her eyes, of opening herself to the possibility of happiness again. "Then what happens?"

"We fit together, Shalini, we always have." Yudi tells her. "You said you didn't want to live with regrets, and I know... I hope... that you have also thought about me over the years, of what could have been."

Yudi sees the moment that her mind changes, the conviction that flashes in her eyes.

"Dinner then." She confirms, a slight smile on her face. "You'd better be prepared to impress me."

"I'll do my absolute best." Yudi promises. "As soon as this is all over, you and me and... well probably the best dhaba nearby considering we don't have much choice here."

Shalini laughs and he squeezes her hand once more before he releases it. "It'll probably be the most interesting date I've ever been on."

They part then, each headed back to their duties, but Yudi looks back at her as he goes.

Four years after graduation and he has finally met her again, somewhere entirely unexpected. Whether Yudi was expecting this second chance or not, he's not going to let it pass him by.

He won't regret decisions not taken anymore, he'll grasp what he wants tightly in both hands.


End file.
